CREATION OF NARNIA
Lewis’s take on the creation
account in the Magician’s Nephew is a
striking attempt at capturing the beauty in which the world as we know it was
created. His vibrant descriptions paint
a created world which makes the reader feel the significance of creation. As Jonathan Rogers puts it, “You’ve heard it
so many times you may have lost the ability to marvel at the most marvelous,
and perhaps the most fundamental of Christian truths: the natural world is of
supernatural origin.”[1] The story of Adam and Eve has become an
overused story through Sunday School lessons, children’s Bibles and Vacation
Bible Schools in our culture.
Yet Lewis,
through his gift of writing, creates a world that evokes feeling and emotions
which the Biblical narrative of creation just cannot do.
Though it is evident that Adam
and Eve are recognized even in Narnia as the created beings of earth, the land of
Narnia takes on an entirely different – yet similar – creation story. God speaks the world into being, while Aslan,
the Great Lion, sings his land of Narnia into being. This smooth and “most beautiful noise”[2]
brought light and vegetation and animals to the world, which is an impressive
testament to the created things of the world as well.
Lewis clearly understood the phenomenon of creation
by the way he described two wonders during Narnia’s creation. One was the harmony of voices, “more voices
than you could possibly count.”[3] The other wonder “was that the blackness
overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars…one moment there had been nothing
but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leapt out.”[4] If this gives any testament to the Genesis
account of “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3 NIV), then it surely paints a more vivid picture
and understanding of the massive change the world had just experienced.
In fact, I cannot help but wonder if there is
a hint of C.S. Lewis represented by the Cabby who responds to the creation
scene by stating, “I’d h’a been a better man all my life if I’d known there
were things like this.”[5] Perhaps this was his way of inserting his
regrets of not understanding God’s beauty and grace sooner in life.
The remainder of the creation
story in chapter 9 of The Magician’s
Nephew is primarily focused on the animals and humans. After identifying a lion as the source of the
song of creation, the land of Narnia begins its growth through the musical
undertones.
“As he walked and sang, the
valley grew green with grass…making that young world every moment softer. Soon there were other things besides grass,”[6]
like trees and mountains and flowers.
Nature grew right in front of the small crew of people from London. They were able to witness life from the
beginning as trees sprouted quickly as the “great Lion, Aslan”[7]
sang nature into creation.
The next
thing he focused upon is the birth of animals.
The Lion’s song changes and the land swells into humps which “moved and
swelled till they burst, and the crumbled earth poured out of them, and from
each hump there came out an animal.”[8] This interesting creation of animals brings
about dogs and moles and frogs and panthers and all sorts of new life.
Lewis is clear in Mere Christianity that he understood the act of God creating as
“begetting, not making, because what He produces is of the same kind of
Himself,”[9]
and it is evident that Narnia has a similar beginning. The song of the Lion is soon overtaken by the
new noises of the animals who join in their creator’s song, emphasizing that
“Narnia was quite a different world from ours.”[10]
[1]
Jonathan Rogers, The
World According to Narnia: Christian Meaning in C.S. Lewis's Beloved Chronicles (New York: FaithWords, 2005), 153-4.
[2]
C.S. Lewis, “The
Magician’s Nephew” in The Chronicles of Narnia, 1st American ed.
(New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 61.
[3]
Ibid.
[4]
Ibid.
[5]
Ibid, 62.
[6]
Ibid, 65.
[7]
Kilby, 118.
[8]
Lewis, Magician’s Nephew, 69.
[9]
Lewis, Mere Christianity, 151.
[10]
Kilby, 120.
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